A letter to John Daly from a fellow traveler

Dear John Daly,

We’ve never met but I know you. Like you, I am an alcoholic. So when I saw the story of you being arrested at a Hooters for public intoxication, I thought I’d write to you. Because in a few months, I’ll celebrate my sixth year of sobriety. I have been on the journey to the bottom, and I am still and always will be on the journey back.

Calling you an alcoholic may be presumptuous and even rude on my part, but having been there, I am very aware that those who knew me were very much aware of my own alcoholism long before I was willing to own up to it. So John, I say this with complete confidence - I feel your pain. I spent many years as a functional alcoholic, often waking up with that terrible hangover that’s accompanied by the guilt that comes with knowing you’ve done something shameful like making a fool of yourself in public or upsetting a loved one. And I know the feeling of what it’s like when the functional part leaves you, and all you’re left with is the alcoholic part.

I know what it’s like to have weekends disappear in a drunken haze. I know what it’s like to lie about why your work is suffering and why you take more sick days than anyone else. I know the feeling of waking up at 2 a.m. half-drunk and half-hungover and being unable to go back to sleep because every fiber in your body feels tensed and stressed and wrong. I know the downward journey that you are on, because I traveled it.

But I know that journey can be turned around and lead to a good place. Because with the help of a loving wife and family, I was able to stop. That was and continues to be a journey of its own, but more than five years into it, it is a journey of love and happiness. It is a journey that has given me restored confidence and a comfort in my own skin that I never had experienced prior.

John, like you I have felt terrible humiliation and shame. But those feelings in me are gone now because I was finally honest with myself. Because I knew the journey I was on would end in tragedy. And because, more than anything, I wanted to be better, I wanted to stop drinking.

Now, I recognize my past but I feel no shame for it. And I cannot be shamed or embarrassed for it. Over the years I have taken full responsibility for my alcoholism. And the shame and fear has been replaced with pride and hope. And no one can take those feelings away from me or make me feel bad for traveling this road.

John, your golfing career and personality has entertained and thrilled millions of people over the years. You are not a laughingstock, no matter how many try to make you one. And you are not alone. There are millions and millions of us on the same journey as you, on various stages of the path. And you have it in you to change direction.

Speaking as someone who turned around, let me tell you that it’s obviously not easy, but it is possible. You just have to honestly recognize which way you are heading and embrace it with every aching and tired fiber of your being. It can be done. And trust me when I tell you this - the road back is truly a journey worth taking.

You wrote a poignant and realistic portrayal of a life as a functioning alcoholic with its social and physical ramifications. In the case of John Daly, the public will continue to treat this as a "feel good" story much as if it were a John Belushi or a John Candy getting drunk at a Hooters and passing out. After all, there is something comical about an obese out of control good 'ol boy getting wasted and passing out after overindulging in beer and hot wings. The mind automatically cartoons a picture of Hooters waitresses fanning a passed out John Daly on the floor, perhaps with a straining T-shirt stained with hot sauce.

Yes it's a laugh riot until one realizes that the other two Johns- Belushi and Candy- are no longer with us.

Well said Wolf, I just think it's going to be impossible for Daly to put it down, because everywhere he goes, someone is thinking to himself, "Man, how great would it be to get drunk with JD!?!?". I think a lot of his peers are trying to distance themselves to send a message, but the fans who love him unconditionally may be serving as his greatest threat.

You do indeed have great courage. Even though you had a loving wife and family to help you, it must still have been a most difficult journey. I have had two close work colleagues
who literally drank themselves to death despite family/friend support and attending programs paid for by our employer. They were simply not able to overcome their addiction.

I wish I held out stronger hopes that John Daly
would be able to make the same journey as you, but I doubt he has the self-discipline or support to do so. All those fans wanting to buy him a drink, his choice of partners, etc,. We don't know what his friends and "friends"
are able to do to help him. I wish him well.

I shall think of you and your family at Thanksgiving & Christmas and the difficulties you have all overcome.

Life is good without the booze. Sobriety is not a jail sentence, although some people think so. This thing called addiction has many layers and it is time for a man named John to start to peel them off. I did and thought I could not do it. Like you I had a lot of support. Hopefully this incident is just that... an incident, and he can look at it as a turning point from here. I wish you and John all the best.

But on a much less serious level, it does sort of explain your extreme liberal looniness, K. Don't addicts often replace the addiction with an equally crazy obsession that's hopefully much less dangerous to themselves and others.

Some guys find religion. You found the Huffington Post.

It's obviously working for you, so keep it up. Would it be insensitive to wonder if that's how Al Gore found most of his campaign volunteers?

It is really hard for John to see the truth, especially when fans adore you and he still has money in his pocket. Alcoholics like him and me suffer more from delusion than Denial.
In a good way I hope he finds that part where he finds himself in the state of mind that is pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization.
Only until he reaches his bottom will he be able to see the light. You can't see until you can see or you can't hear until you can hear.
Good luck John and yes beer drinkers can be Alcoholic, maybe even the worsed of them.

I started my long road back from Alcoholism in 1990. I was an 'executive" with 2 beautiful kids, taught Sunday school, was the designated driver who could always be counted on. Then, I went over the edge, and it took me 8 years, 4 treatment centers, 3 halfway houses, living at the YMCA,detox centers 4 times, getting fired from many jobs, losing all I had, right down to everything but the clothes on my back.

When I finally had enough, and with the help of AA and other friends, I quit for good. Today, almost 10 years later, I have no desire to have a drink or a drug and life is good. I am married again, have a good job, my own business and children who love their dad.

I try to be honest with myself and others, and not to take life too seriously :) But, John, you will die, a long, slow death, if you don't get honest, not with us, but with yourself.

A couple of AA sayings come to mind, "The quality of my problems is much better today, than when I was drinking" and "you can turn a cucumber into a pickle, but you can't turn a pickle into a cucumber" Once you have crossed the line, there is no going back.

And, AA is not the only way to get sober, there are plenty of good ways. AA helped me to get started and I am grateful, but in the end, I had to want to stay sober.

You, and only you, can decide that you are sick and tired of feeling the way you feel when you wake up from being drunk. I hope you do just that, and become a sober useful human being again.

It's Friday afternoon in Charlotte, NC, 60 degrees, the sun is shining and I am taking off early for the rest of the day.

Life is good John, Join in. Reach out, and ask for help. You have to make up your own mind, but as soon as you do, honestly, there will be many hands there to walk along side with you, on the road to freedom.

Well said. I too am an alcoholic and am on the journey back up. I will celebrate one year of sobriety next week. It has been the best year of my life. Hopefully, JD will find his bottom and begin his trek back from the depths of insanity.

I kind of think John Daly is going to die long before his time - kind of like Mickey Mantle in baseball, but much earlier.
Too bad. He seems like a hell of a decent guy - just a boozehead (don't take offense; I'm in the same crowd as the author of the original post, and glad for it) who can't come around and stay around.
I hope for the best for Daly, but am realistic in anticipating his obituary long before it's due.

Let's hope the golfing and drinking public stop accepting the excuse-making of Daly. Left to his own devices away from his adoring fans, he might find enough pain for a moment of truth whereby he could turn his life around.

P.S. Robert Jones of Charlotte, NC is suspect. As AA has a tradition of anonymity at the level of press, he must be an imposter. Certainly any AA member sober for 10 years or more would know this and the reasoning for it.

I really didn't go the AA route (though basically went through the steps), but I don't think RJ wrote anything that could be construed as being wrong or breaking any codes as far as I am aware. Sharing your own experiences publicly helps others and becomes much easier to do the longer you're sober.

RonMon: I think you're over analyzing it a touch. As for resisting, that's not even an issue. I just don't drink now. It's part of who I am, not something I have to struggle at all with or yearn for in any way at all. I have to resist drinking the same amount I have to resist snorting coke or shooting heroin, which I have never done and was never tempted to do.

But my past is not something I try and close the door on or pretend never happened. Sort of a "those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it" sort of thing.

As for Daly, when a 40-something, long-time drinker is showing up publicly intoxicated, they've got a problem. Some people can drink responsibly their whole lives and even get quite drunk on occasion yet be in control. But they don't show up drunk at Hooters when in their 40s.

Hate to belabor the point, but RJ is publicly speaking on behalf of that fellowship, which he is not in a position to do. I personally know a number of semi-famous folks who are AA members and they guard that principle of anonymity in the press zealously. Their reasons are experienced-based, figured out the hard way through mistakes. As that organization's results are historically phenomenal, I'll always champion their way of doing things.

You, however, not being involved in that outfit, would be free to say whatever you please.

WorldGolf.com's William K. Wolfrum blogs about everything in the world of golf and travel, including Michelle Wie, Lorena Ochoa, Tiger Woods and other PGA and LPGA headlines. Plus, he offers the humorous and obscure in news, politics and pop culture.